Sharing Life's Lessons on Living in this World and yet being Above it!

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Disclaimer 1: The author, AVIS, does not claim that he is the be-all, know-all and end-all of all that he shares based on experiences and learnings. AVIS has nothing against or for any religion. If the reader has a learning to share, most welcome. If the reader has a bone to pick or presents a view, which may affect the sentiments of other followers/readers, then this Page’s administrators may have to regrettably delete such a comment and even block such a follower. Disclaimer 2: No Thought expressed here is original though the experience of the learning shared may be unique. AVIS has little interest in either infringing upon or claiming copyright of any material published on this Page. The images/videos used on this Page/Post are purely for illustrative purposes. They belong to their original owners/creators. The author does not intend profiting from them nor is there any covert claim to copyright any of them.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Drink from the Cup of Life, one sip at a time!

Learn to be aware of what you are doing. It is through
awareness that you become peaceful.

There are two ways of doing anything. You can
do something mechanically. Or you can do it mindfully, with total involvement,
with awareness. Try building awareness into your Life with simple things. Don’t
eat, for instance, without being aware of what you are eating. We normally just
eat – thinking of something else or we are checking our phones or we are
swapping channels on TV or we are flipping through a book. We are eating
alright, but we are not mindful of our eating. It is a listless, mechanical,
to-do item on our checklist – you can’t avoid eating, so you eat! The way to
eat with awareness is to eat with gratitude – for those several thousands of
people, some of them nameless and faceless, who have toiled to make your meal
arrive at your table – and to eat relishing every morsel. Enjoying food is a
very spiritual experience. When you eat like this, mindfully, you train your
mind to be in the present and not wander away. This is the way you can build
awareness in everything – while walking, while drinking your tea or even beer, while bathing, while gardening….in fact,
while doing anything!

Now, be sure, the mind will protest when you
order it to be present in the moment, to be mindful and aware. The mind doesn’t
like to be in the now. Because when you are immersed in the moment, the mind
cannot worry or grieve. And the human mind loves worrying and grieving! Think
about this. When you relish each sip of your green tea – or any of your
favorite beverage – in that moment of relishing, you will not be worrying about
the future or be remorseful about the past. In that moment, there’s only the
green tea, there’s only freshness, there’s pure, unadulterated joy! You will
have the same experience if you were to take a cold bottle of water on a hot
summer afternoon and drink from it. For those few moments that you quench your
thirst, nothing will really matter. But this is where the mind will play dirty.
It will draw you into the future – filling you with anxiety over something that
is yet to happen. Or it will drag you into the past and make you feel guilty or
sad about what has happened. So, for instance, how can you enjoy your meal or
relish your green tea when someone’s dying in hospital (anxiety over a future
event) or when you have had a massive argument with your companion (grief and
guilt over the past)? Your mind will tell you that what’s more important than
being in the now, is feeling anxious and/or feeling remorseful. And you will
capitulate. This is what has been happening to you, to me, all this while. This
is also why we don’t experience inner peace. But if you learn to tell your mind
to back off, to allow you to experience the now, your mind will heed you.
Surprisingly, with little or no protest. The mind though aggressive is very
obedient. With consistent effort it can be trained. When you reach that state
when you can learn to be fully aware and mindful, of whatever you are doing,
you are actually free from the clutches of your mind. Then you are neither
brooding nor imagining worst-case, yet-to-happen, scenarios. Then you are the
peace that you seek!

Mindfulness is about being aware of whatever you are
doing, by immersing yourself totally in that activity, consciously. It is
through awareness that you can drink from the cup of Life, one sip at a time,
one moment at a time.